by Matthew Ward
“Raven’s Eyes,” breathed Erashel, open-mouthed.
Josiri dragged her behind a stack of mildewed crates. Altiris crouched beside him, lips working fiercely in silent prayer.
Half a dozen paces off, Merisov and Taladan crouched behind another crate. Both wore aghast expressions, but then Josiri supposed his own made interesting viewing. A hurried glance caught sight of the nearest cage, and the ragged folk within. Josiri raised a finger to his lips, warning against cries that would draw vranakin attention. He needn’t have bothered. Of the six or seven captives, only one even seemed to notice him. Seemed to, for there was little recognition in those hopeless eyes. A dozen cages. Perhaps a hundred captives, all waiting for the knife.
The first spark of anger caught light in Josiri’s gut.
“I’ve changed my mind.” Erashel’s cheeks were pale, her hazel eyes lacking habitual confidence. “I think I should stay outside.”
The air didn’t taste as air should. It lacked the mustiness of the harbourside, the decay that seemed inevitable in the rundown warehouse. Blood, yes – too much blood – and the stale foulness of men and women caged without respite. But beneath it all, a subtle, pervasive scent that defied precise definition. Forgotten recollections stirred to conscious recall, or the contentment that came with the weariness of honest labour.
Josiri felt as though he were again in the company of his mother, his sister – kith and kin long lost to the Raven’s clutches. He fought the longing to embrace that feeling, to cling to a dream of the faded past, and felt himself slipping all the while. In desperation, he bit down on the heel of his hand.
The world reshaped about the flash of pain. The memories retreated. He took another breath, shallower this time. But whatever enchantment lay within the mist had lost its grasp.
All the tales of the Crowmarket and their Raven-worship, and he’d never truly believed. Not until that moment. An age too late.
Taladan jerked her head at the far wall. A pair of vranakin in mismatched garb made procession through the swirling mists, angling for the cages. Josiri pressed his shoulders against the crate and sought a fruitless glimpse of Kurkas.
What to do? Pragmatism demanded he withdraw, return with Izack and the glory of Essamere. But was that pragmatism, or fear? There were only a dozen vranakin in sight. The odds were equal, maybe even in his favour once contingency was invoked. Retreat, and he risked abandoning Kurkas. He guaranteed that others would die beneath the archway. All hope would be lost. But open the cages, rally the captives…
He was moving before conscious decision, dagger eased from its sheath. He kept low behind the crates until the jailers had passed, then ghosted in behind, grateful that the mist deadened his footsteps. Merisov drew level and nodded understanding.
One pace. Two. Josiri sprang. His hand muffled the vranakin’s cry, even as his dagger took the woman’s throat. He staggered under the corpse’s weight, dragging it down and out of sight. Merisov inched back, burdened by his own victim. As he did so, his foot caught something hidden by the mists. It clattered away with a metallic, hollow chime.
Over by the archway, the kernclaw’s head snapped up.
The chant dissolved into screaming birds.
The warehouse lurched from horror to madness. The screeching of crows shook the rafters, joined by the voices of men and women raised in wild imitation. Vranakin plunged from the ceiling with short, wicked blades flashing. Kurkas parried a lunge, then lashed out behind with his elbow. A vranakin flailed through an unseeing etravia and vanished over the quayside.
Another parry. A thrust. A second vranakin fell gasping. A third barrelled out of the mist. A shoulder struck Kurkas in the gut. His feet shot away. He howled into vapour as his head struck stone.
Above, steel glinted as a vranakin came for his throat. Eyes glazed over beneath the mask as Jaridav hacked him down from behind. She shook as she helped Kurkas rise. Only sixteen summers behind her. Never seen more action than clearing drunks from Stonecrest’s gate.
“Thanks,” gasped Kurkas.
He cast about the chaos. A hearthguard lay slumped beside the door. The two who remained fought back to back close by. No sign of Lord Trelan, but sounds of battle from the far corner told a tale all their own. He ignored the drifting etravia, put childhood tales to the back of his mind. He could turn to jelly later.
Two more vranakin circled close, wary now of chancing his blade. Jaridav backed up, her eyes as often on the drifting spirits as living foes.
“So much for doing it quiet,” said Kurkas. “You stay close to me, lass.”
Jaridav swallowed. “What do we do?”
“We make some bloody noise, that’s what.” He raised his voice to a roar. “For the Phoenix!”
“For the Phoenix!”
Kurkas’ bellow ripped through the mist. Elation swept away Josiri’s annoyance at a battle cry he hated. But elation had little purchase on that moment.
Once-level odds slanted heavily in the enemy’s favour. Two vranakin for every phoenix. That they weren’t overwhelmed already was because so many crow-brethren hung back beside the archway where the ragged grey figure knelt in meditation.
Josiri caught a flicker of motion and hurled himself aside. A dagger clattered off the wall. The thrower reeled away as Erashel’s thrust ripped into his leather-clad arm. She pursued, and another vranakin dropped from the rafters.
“Erashel!”
Josiri struck the vranakin’s sword aside. The blow meant for Erashel’s spine instead scraped across her ribs. She hissed and fell to one knee. As the vranakin rounded on Josiri, Altiris came screaming out of the mist.
“For the Phoenix!”
What Altiris’ artless, two-handed haymaker lacked in precision, it compensated for in raw power. The vranakin spiralled away, the vengeful southwealder in pursuit.
Josiri knelt. “How bad is it?”
“Barely a graze.” Erashel winced through the lie. “I’m just glad they bleed. I was starting to wonder.”
Taladan staggered into view. The left side of her face was masked in blood, her cloak ragged and torn. “This would be a good time for that divine favour.”
“Wouldn’t it just.” Josiri grimaced and admitted defeat. “For the Phoenix!”
“For the Phoenix!”
Voices hammered out of the mist in reply.
Taladan thrust her sword high. “For the—”
The space between them came alive with a torrent of crow voices. Raking talons snatched her screaming into darkness.
Josiri spun on his heel as Taladan’s body fell. A man’s form took shape among a storm of shadowy wings. Then it dissolved, seething like smoke through the mist.
Josiri shoved Erashel clear. The kernclaw boiled towards him, a nightmare given form, but Josiri had nightmares aplenty. The eyes mattered. Only the eyes.
With the shadow but a pace distant, a flicker in its green eyes betrayed intent. Steel scraped as bloodied talons met Eskagard-forged steel. Josiri’s riposte flowed from shoulder to wrist. The kernclaw flinched away then whirled about, talons slashing at eye-level.
Josiri jerked his sword to parry, though he knew it to be too little, too late.
The kernclaw shrieked and whirled away. Erashel stood behind. Blood oozed between fingers clasped to her side and gleamed on the edge of her blade. A nod of breathless gratitude, and Josiri dived in pursuit. The kernclaw collapsed against a stack of crates. Screeching, shadowy flock boiled away, and then he was merely a man in a feathered cloak, heels kicking as he struggled to stand.
With a growl of triumph, Josiri closed the last distance and levelled his sword like a spear at eyes that no longer glowed.
The air came alive with crow-voices once more.
This time from behind.
Apara bore Josiri to the ground. His sword skittered into the mist, and then she was atop him, the tips of her talons against his throat.
“Enough!” she shouted. “Lay down your swords or Lord Trelan dies!”
She met his gaze, daring him to call her bluff. The shadow wouldn’t let her kill him in cold blood. Even now, certainty bled away beneath its disapproval. And she didn’t care for the way Lord Trelan regarded her. Fear, certainly. Fear was good. Anger was expected. But… recognition? Had she erred in coming so close? Had some quirk of mannerism or voice betrayed her dual life?
“I know you,” he said. “Sevaka’s sister. The thief. We wondered what had become of you. I told her I’d look for you, but I never found you.”
So her position on the Council remained secure? “I have no sister, only cousins.” She raised her voice. “Weapons down! I won’t ask again!”
The hearthguards complied. The one-armed captain – the man whose onslaught had left three dead cousins in its wake, and as many wounded besides – obeyed last of all. Only Lady Beral refused. Even though her face was taut with pain, the steel in her hand remained second to that in her eyes.
“You’ll kill him anyway.”
“Dead men are of no use to the Parliament of Crows, Erashel.” The use of the personal name was a mistake, born of one-sided familiarity, but there was no taking it back. “The Crowmarket is rising from the shadows. You can both be part of that.”
Erad staggered upright. Parting the ring of cousins about Erashel, he ripped the sword from her hand. “What are you doing, Apara?”
“It never hurts to have more voices on the Council.”
Erashel’s eyes touched on the bloodied archway. Josiri laughed. Talons at his throat, and his pitiful band dead or ringed with blades, and he actually laughed. Anger mingled with admiration for a strength she lacked. The raven cloak murmured discontent. The shadow hissed.
“We’re southwealders,” he said. “Threats don’t buy our allegiance.”
Admiration faded. Defiance was one thing, idiocy another.
“Fine.” Apara dragged Josiri upright and pushed him to Erad. “Give him to the Raven.”
“Gladly, cousin.”
Erad’s shove propelled Josiri through the dead-eyed etravia. He walked backwards, eyes never leaving Apara’s. “It’s not too late. You can be free, as Sevaka is free.”
Erad’s talons goaded him towards the archway, and the silent elder cousin kneeling alongside.
The raven cloak’s voices blossomed in discomfort, and Apara wondered why. The shadow squirmed in her gut. But stopping her from landing a deathblow was one thing; it lacked the strength to compel her to prevent another’s.
“So like a councillor,” she replied. “Always bargaining with something not yours to offer.”
Erad set his talons at Josiri’s throat. Fresh blood trickled along the steel. Still Josiri gazed defiantly back.
“You forget,” he said. “Before I was a councillor, I was a wolf’s-head. And if you learn anything as a wolf’s-head, it’s to never show your full hand until you must.”
The warehouse door exploded inwards.
Seventeen
Anastacia seldom looked more unreal than in that moment, framed by the shattered warehouse door, and mists coiling about the rags of her beggar’s disguise. The gold and white of her doll’s mask conspired to fury without expression, and her sing-song voice held bleak promise.
[[Crawl away, Raven-sworn.]]
The lack of a weapon in her gloved hand little diminished the words’ threat. Silence met Ana’s demand; vranakin and hearthguard alike frozen in transient expectation.
All save Josiri, who grinned like a madman. “I’d do as you’re told. My offer stands.”
Sevaka’s sister stiffened.
A half-dozen newcomers pressed in behind Ana, swords and cudgels ready. Erashel’s men.
What the impoverished Lady Beral lacked in hearthguard, she compensated for in influence with the scattered southwealder community. They’d come without question, setting aside duties and labours to join Anastacia’s disguised vigil. The signal phrase had been Kurkas’ idea. For the Phoenix. A battle cry Ana knew Josiri would countenance only in direst circumstance. He forgave them both.
The male kernclaw shoved Josiri into Sevaka’s sister’s grasp and split apart in a storm of inky feathers. Silence drowned beneath the maddened screech of birds.
Beating wings dragged Ana into darkness. Sparks flew as steel talons sliced through soiled rags and chinked against samite porcelain beneath. A choked cry. A hollow thud.
The crows scattered. The kernclaw thrashed with Ana’s hand tight about his throat – a grown man suspended a foot off the ground by a figure slender to the point of fragility. He gave a small, stuttering gasp, talons slashing uselessly at her arms.
[[I won’t ask again.]]
She cuffed him about the head and cast the unconscious body aside.
Josiri drove his elbow into his captor’s gut and dived for his sword.
Ana’s companions charged. Anarchy overtook the warehouse for the second time. As Josiri’s straining fingers found the grips of his sword, Altiris flung himself at a vranakin.
The clash of swords chimed through the mists. The first screams followed.
Expecting at any moment to feel talons in his spine, Josiri rolled to his feet, but found no sign of his captor. Only the archway, and a drab-robed figure kneeling beside.
The knife flashed past Kurkas’ ribs. Fresh tinder for future nightmares. Then the vranakin was within reach. He clubbed her down and kicked her twice in the head. To his right, Jaridav slammed a heel into a vranakin’s knee. The howl of pain gurgled as her sword finished the job.
Good lass.
Kurkas scooped up his fallen sword and loped for the cages. A ragged figure spiralled overhead and crashed into the caravel’s sunken timbers, courtesy of Anastacia’s throw.
“Took your time, didn’t you, plant pot?”
She drew back her hood, revealing a chestnut wig with plaits askew. A white face flushed with golden sheen. That was new. [[I can always leave.]]
Kurkas grinned. “Ain’t no point now you’re here, is there?” He took in the cages, and the weary, desperate eyes within. His grin slipped away. “We got a key?”
Anastacia followed his gaze. Her shoulders drew back.
[[Yes.]]
Vranakin scattered from her path. One withdrew too slowly, and died with Kurkas’ blade between his ribs. Gloved hands closed about a cage’s hasp and twisted. Metal screeched. Anastacia dropped the remains at her feet and ripped open the barred door.
[[Key.]]
“Show off,” muttered Kurkas, but she was already on her way towards the next. He raised his voice. “Look lively, you lot!”
Disbelieving eyes regarded him from inside the cage, and then the prisoners moved for the threshold. The third – an old woman – stumbled across the rusted doorway. Kurkas held her upright.
“Jaridav? Brass? Lend a hand, would you?”
“I have her.” Wiping filthy blond hair back from his eyes, Lord Trelan propped his shoulder beneath the old woman’s. “See to the others.”
“Yes, sah!”
Another crash of steel echoed as Anastacia ripped open another cage. Further along, Altiris set purloined key to another lock. A vranakin lunged, and reeled away as one of Lady Beral’s militia swung at his head.
A new scream split the air, a shriek so mournful and soul-struck that it stole the breath from Kurkas’ lungs and set goose-bumps racing across his skin.
He stared across the warehouse to the archway. The grey-robed figure was on his feet, cloth-wrapped hands about the wrists of one of Lady Beral’s militia and his cloak streaming behind like the wings of some vast, tattered moth.
The scream faded. Released, the militiaman fell away, withered lips drawn tight across a rictus grin. Dust scattered from brittle hair and sunken cheeks. Pearlescent, sightless eyes gleamed in reflected light as the body slid into the mists.
Kurkas licked dry lips. He knew about the elder cousins, of course – you couldn’t grow up in Dregmeet and not – but there was knowing, and there was knowing. In that mist-shrouded wa
rehouse, the etravia retreating from the grey figure as readily as the living, he caught a glimmer of just how far short that knowledge had fallen.
“Blessed Lumestra…” murmured Lord Trelan.
Gasps and terrified sobs came not only from the captives – not only from his lordship’s mishmash of soldiers – but from vranakin also.
Kurkas kindled the scraps of his fleeting courage. “Hearthguard! To me!”
An insistent hand fell on his shoulder. [[No. Get everyone out.]]
Too often, Kurkas found Anastacia’s voice hard to read. Not now. Loathing. Concern. Disgust. She strode past, arrow-straight through the mists.
[[You do not belong in this world.]]
“Nor do you.” Robes hissing and snapping, the elder cousin lunged.
Anastacia caught his rag-bound hands at her throat. Fingers interlocked. Boots scraped on stone. Slowly, impossibly, she slid backwards.
Her hollow cry, frustration tinged with pain, echoed through the mists.
Kurkas gaped, the empty feeling returning to his gut. He’d seen some of what Anastacia could do. He’d heard more – not least that she’d stood square in the path of a charging grunda and not lost an inch of ground. To see her overmatched?
“Kelver? Get this woman outside.” Lord Trelan started forward. “Kurkas? Merisov? You’re with me.”
Anastacia slipped another inch. Dark-carapaced insects scuttled beneath the elder cousin’s robes, rushing across linked hands and Anastacia’s grubby sleeves.
Kurkas tried to tear his gaze away. “She said ‘no’.”
“I don’t care,” said Lord Trelan.
Lady Beral drew closer, her eyes glued to the contest. “Don’t be a fool, Josiri. Remember why we’re here.”
Anastacia’s gloves disintegrated into dust and desiccated cloth. Her legs buckled. Her knee hit mist-cloaked flagstones. Her shoulders heaved as one labouring to breathe, though she never did. Her arms trembled.
[[I said LEAVE!]]
The air howled with a sudden, furious wind. Kurkas flung up an arm to shield his eyes as Anastacia vanished in a flash of searing, golden light.